


I Ship It

by lookatallthemoresigive



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, An Ex Box, Death, F/F, I Ship It, Moral Support Banners, Wizard Rock, Wonderwall, vlogging - Freeform, you know what's preferable to having a crush on your roommate?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-07 14:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5460305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookatallthemoresigive/pseuds/lookatallthemoresigive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Y’know,” Carmilla drawled, “most people, when breaking up with their significant other, usually don’t start a wizard rock band.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Ship It

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on a delightful short that's about love, vlogging, and WIZARD ROCK with a wonderfully Scott Pilgrim-esque visual style. If you haven't watched [I Ship It](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4-o9pAWsCcurl), like Carmilla it's free and entirely up on youtube! Go watch it if you enjoy awesome lady directors and catchy original songs! Either way, I hope you enjoy my version.

Elizabeth Anne Spielsdorf, like many poor souls, had the misfortune to end up at Silas University for college.

Luckily for Betty, this was actually a mix-up, and the grizzled one eyed counselor assured her that her transfer to Princeton would definitely be accepted.

Due to Princeton’s requirements, she couldn’t actually take a full semester's worth of classes or she wouldn’t be able to transfer as a freshman.

So, while waiting for her transfer to go through, Betty decided to take advantage of her unique situation by partying.

A lot.

And dragging her provincial roommate along with her. Laura Hollis only fully remembered about eighty percent of her first six weeks of college.

One night she remembered very clearly, though. That night Betty drunkenly declared herself Laura's fairy gaymother and pushed her into Danny who caught her as she fell and asked her if she was alright and the rest, they say, is history.

But this is the present.

“Greetings gentle viewers!” The red blinking light of Laura’s camera seemed to be judging her, big time. “Okay, so there’s been enough moping in these videos. I'm sure there's something more exciting on campus than the train wreck that is my love life. It's time for the Silas News Network to give you some news! Let's see, we have the library...being creepy...as usual...and someone found a really big bug in the caf?”

Laura shuffled her papers and then threw them in the air.

“C'mon! This place has a homecoming goat sacrifice! There has got to be something,” Laura said as she put her head down and groaned.

Laf and Perry had tried their best to cheer her up with movies and brownies but not even homemade artificial sugar and Ghostbuster marathons could get her out of her funk.

Betty, from the comfort of her Princeton dorm, sent her ten crying emojis, then some emojis that looked like they were possibly the lyrics to a TLC song or a very complex cocktail recipe. After that it was a sea of red dress emojis interspersed with various alcohol related emojis.

(Laura knew she shouldn't have asked a premed for breakup advice.)

And Betty’s replacement? Well…

“Wow, and I thought that pie cutter and a tub of rocky road was the lowest this was going to get. At least Bluto isn’t your TA for much longer. Try not to have a seizure while I’m out, Olive Oyl.” Laura rolled her eyes at Carmilla’s retreating form. She was at her worst when her nicknames were themed.

The door slammed shut, and Laura slumped further down, whining. She reached for her ever present mug full of delicious hot cocoa, and instead landed on a glossy surface. Laura opened her eyes and grabbed the flyer, reading it again. She looked up and smiled.

“I think I have an idea! See you guys next week,” Laura said, flicking off her camera.

After she uploaded the video she scrolled through the comments, eyerolling at the ones that were just variants of the word Carmilla, proper spelling and lack of capslock keyboard smashing optional.

 _okay so if you got to 3:36 and mute the vid it looks like carmilla is saying i love you!! ahh omg im dyinggg #ishipit_  xlimpidtears666x wrote.

And that's when Laura gave up on the Internet being any source of help.

 

“Hello everyone! Sorry I left you all in suspense, but I think I have found the best breakup cure,” Laura spoke into her camera, gesturing to the stack of Harry Potter books and sheets of paper cluttering her desk.

She grabbed a flyer and presented it to the camera with a flourish. “I have officially signed up for the Silas Wizard Rock Battle of the Bands!”

Laura gave the flyer one last wave before setting it back down. “Now, for those of you that have deluded yourself into thinking it’s dangerous and that the stage is going to collapse on me because the Lustig happened to burn down once in the thirties then you’re more than welcome to come, but you’re not stopping me.”

She picked up her acoustic guitar from where she had set it next to her desk and hovered her pick over the strings. “And no, I have never written a song before but I’ve got almost a semester’s worth of a lit class and I’ve seen A Very Potter Musical. How hard can it be?”

 

"Ugh. Horcruxes, something about Horcruxes. Your love is an evil constricting snake? No. Ugh!" Laura flopped onto her bed and strummed a couple of cords. “Music is evil.”

"Y'know," Carmilla drawled, sprawled out on her bed and reading from her battered copy of _The Strange_ r, "most people, when breaking up with their significant other, usually don't start a wizard rock band."

"Yeah yeah, they go on vacation or post passive aggressively on Facebook, but since I'm a poor college student and I'm sick of the endless hate anons I’ve gotten telling me to get over myself, this is all I've got. And may I remind you, Hippogriff the Hypocrite, of the Ex Box."

Carmilla lifted an eyebrow, and Laura felt her blood rushing to her cheeks. Hours of getting nowhere was the only reason she brought it up. For Carmilla’s sake she had tried to block the origins of the Ex Box from her mind, but being woken up at an unholy hour by her roommate hovering over a trashcan with a lit match, manic gleam in her eyes, was high up there on her list of wild college stories.

"Handing out the Horcruxes."

"What?" Laura sat up, because surely she had just imagined Carmilla referencing The Night of Which They Do Not Speak.

"Handing out the Horcruxes of my broken heart. What? I read Harry Potter." Carmilla locked eyes with Laura, then buried her face back into her book.

"Handing out, handing out the Horcruxes of my broken heart,” Laura sang thoughtfully, strumming out an accompanying tune. "In a cardboard box that keeps tearing me apart!" She exclaimed, pointing excitedly at Carmilla's Ex Box, as it was now apparently The Night to Which They Make Explicit References. Carmilla dutifully rolled her eyes. "You're a genius! Thanks Carm!"

"Yeah well, this was getting even more pathetic than it already was. Use an electric guitar so it's not utterly embarrassing."

Laura's computer started pinging. She climbed off her bed and checked her notifications.

“That doesn’t sound like as many dings as when I’m in it, cutie. Guess I didn't make the cut for today’s footage.”

“I uploaded a really short video. Not everything is about you,” Laura said as she scrolled through dozens of _omg wheres ur hot roommate?!?!??!?!?!?!11_ comments.

“Twitter has informed me that there’s a petition for you to rename the show after me,” Carmilla said smugly.

“Not happening.” Laura scrolled through more of the comments. “Wow, some of these people are seriously delusional.”

“Oh?”

“They think you not being in the video means I’m hiding you as we have a secret relationship and we’re desperately, passionately in love.”

“Well, hotter rebounds are always an effective getting back at your ex strategy,” Carmilla said slowly, giving Laura her best seduction eyes.

“Oh please, full of yourself much?” Laura laughed. Though Carmilla was, factually, infuriatingly attractive, she only flirted with Laura to get a rise out of her. Laura knew better than to take her seriously. It, along with stealing all her hot cocoa and clogging up the shower drain, was part of her terrible roommate charm. After a couple of months of passive aggressively vlogging about her, Laura had come to accept the fact she was living with Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way’s lesbian counterpart.

Carmilla stood up suddenly and left the room in a huff.

Laura rolled her eyes and started to write down the lyrics. Carmilla just had a flair for the over-dramatic. It wasn’t like she was actually flirting with her.

 

"Carm!" Laura called over the noise of the shower. Her roommate had been elusive ever since their lyrics session, so she wasn’t going to let something as inconsequential as privacy stop her from her quest. “Please! I have these killer lyrics but I can’t play some of the chords that I think it needs because I only taught myself one song on the guitar. I’d get someone else or learn it myself but the Battle is tomorrow night. You’re my only hope!”

"Not interested, creampuff." Carmilla’s muffled voice seeped out of the bathroom along with the billowing steam.

“C’mon, this would be fun! It’d be like one of those roommate bonding activities that Perry’s always trying to make us do.”

“Go away.”

“Stop being so grumpy! You’d get to play an electric guitar while being cheered on by the adoring masses! Besides, you don’t like Danny, so you wouldn’t just be doing this for me.”

“You are so oblivious.”

Laura’s heart sank. She sighed loudly and flopped onto her bed, strumming her guitar. “Maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me.”

The door opened, the escaping steam making the room feel like a sauna while Carmilla stood in a towel, looking physically pained. “Ugh, if it will stop you from assaulting my ears with that torture masquerading as a form of late nineties top forty drivel, what do you want me to do?”

Laura grinned.

 

“Welcome to Swaghelia, do you agree to be filmed and blah blah blah?” A girl asked, shoving a camera in Laura’s face.

“Elsie? It’s me, Laura Hollis, we have anthropology together?” She fiddled with her Time Turner necklace and not for the first time that night wondered if this was all a terrible mistake. “Are you-”

“High?” Carmilla said.

“Carm!” Laura glared at her.

“You can go in or whatever.” Elsie slowly looked Carmilla up and down and winked. Carmilla remained stone faced, which was pretty impressive as Elsie was usually her type of “study buddy”. That didn’t stop Elsie from slipping her a shred of paper. “Call me.”  

“C’mon creampuff,” Carmilla said, steering Laura towards the door before she could rightly expound on Elsie’s lack of professionalism.

Out of the corner of her eye Laura saw Elsie turn the camera back to face her, stone faced. "Whatever, she couldn’t handle my bottomless pit of swag."

“Laura!” A wild tangle of red curls was all the warning she got before she was smothered in a hug.

“Perry! How did you get into the green room?”

“Oh, Perr bribed security with brownies,” LaFontaine said as they looked over Carmilla’s gear, nodding in approval. “Too bad I haven’t touched the drums in years, this would’ve been fun. Good luck Frosh, and, uh, whatever you are Carmilla.”

“Yes, good luck! I made banners!” As if on cue both she and LaFontaine pulled out small banners that had MORAL SUPPORT printed neatly on both sides and waved them. “We even have an extra one for you, Carmilla.”

Carmilla shot Laura a look of eternal suffering, but took the emerald banner being shoved in her hands, albeit reluctantly.

“Oh, this is so exciting. I’m really glad you two took my words to heart. Especially because I love Harry Potter! Though I wish it was taking place somewhere a little less creepy.”

Elsie’s head ducked in from the door, her disembodied face eerily deadpan. “Five minutes, nerds.” 

“C’mon Perr, let’s go find seats.”

“Oh, right, of course. Good luck, and have fun!”

Laura barely registered her friends’ hurried goodbyes, she was too busy giggling as she watched Carmilla experimentally wave the banner.

When she realized Laura was watching her Carmilla scowled and shoved the banner in her back pocket, pushing back her hair with her other hand. She looked all the world like some sort of wrockstar with her leather pants and punk rock bracelet and Slytherin tie that Laura was suitably impressed she had. Laura swallowed and looked away.

"You two are on." Elise's head vanished just as quickly as it had appeared.  

“Let’s get this over with,” Carmilla said, grabbing her stuff.

“Right. Singing. What we’re here for,” Laura muttered, and smoothed down her white skirt. It was time to girl the hell up.

 

“First up is…yeah, you didn’t write anything for the band name so I don’t know what to call you.”

Laura edged out onto the stage. “Just Laura and Carmilla is fine.”

“Yup, okay.” Elsie walked offstage, middle finger raised high. Did she have stage fright or something? Whatever, Laura had more important things to focus on, like pretending she didn’t see a scowling redhead towering over the rest of audience. She reached up and adjusted the microphone back down to her height, and opened her mouth to speak.

“Cupcake here had a bad breakup and then wrote a song about it,” Carmilla beat her to the punch, succinctly summing up the paragraph of pre-song explanation Laura had memorized.

“Hope you like it,” Laura added in for lack of anything else, and as Carmilla strummed the chords they had crammed worked on last night Laura began to sing.

 

Laura slammed through the door as she ran out of the building, tears streaming down her face. She didn’t even pay attention to where she was going but was unsurprised to eventually find herself at the top level of the parking garage, panting as she regained her breath. She pulled out her phone.

**Danny**

_Hey._

**Danny**

_Sorry about that._

**Danny**

_You were really good._

**Danny**

_I can make it up to you. Pie?_

“Hey.” Carmilla’s casual tone was belied by the fact she sounded slightly breathless as she strolled up next to her.

“Hey.” Laura wiped some of her tears away and shoved her phone back into her (or rather Carmilla’s) leather jacket pocket.

“You know we walked here, right?”

“I just wanted to feel tall. And curl up into a ball and never have to deal with the world ever again.”

“Laura, we both know your song was kickass. Even the Whomping Willow had to have seen it.”

“Yeah well, it was kinda hard to tell when I was busy being pelted with tomatoes. Her Summer Society really are taking a strong stance on this whole breakup thing. Sidenote, if you know of any tomato stain removers that would be super.” Laura wiped some of the offending fruit off her face.

"I will only ask this once, and against all forms of better judgment: what’s this really about?”

"This wasn’t how it was suppose to go! Danny was the perfect Gryffindor and we were suppose to take on the world together. But then it turns out being brave and chivalrous is just code for being an overprotective jerk. God, I want to stop feeling like this. I didn't want to be all heartbroken forever when I broke up with her! It'd be easier to be all cold and emotionless and apathetic about it, like you."

Carmilla took a step forward. "Oh yeah, I almost set her stuff on fire because I was handling it so well. I was with Ell for years. I couldn’t even say her name until you gave me that stupid cardboard box. I didn’t do this for the attention, or to piss off Xena. I did it for you because I _like_ you, but I don't need this. I'm done." Carmilla threw the tomato stained Moral Support banner at Laura’s feet for good measure and walked away.

 

The worst part about finding out your roommate has a crush on you and also hates your guts? You're still living together.

Laura rarely saw Carmilla now, and when she did not even a butcher knife could cut through that tension. And the cherry on top of the suck pie was that Carmilla’s awful roommateness grew in proportion to the awkwardness. Hair seemed to coat every part of the room not covered by slime and her yellow pillow was being held hostage.

As she tried to make the room slightly more habitable, Laura’s foot connected with something under Carmilla’s bed and it skidded a couple of inches. She lived mostly in curious fear of her roommate’s possessions (because seriously, who hauls a gigantic leatherbound book to college? Written, according to Google Translate when she sneaked a picture of it, in freaking Sumerian), but this felt too light to be some sort of trap. She ducked down to see what the offending object was, and her heart stopped. Sharpied onto the box’s side were the words Ex Box, in her own hand. Laura pulled it out and her suspicions were confirmed; the box was completely empty. She took a deep breath and gently pushed it back, then marched over to her desk. Laura plopped down into her seat, grabbed her guitar, and flicked on her camera.

"Hey guys." She smiled weakly. “I know I've been a little MIA since the whole Battle of of the Bands disaster. But I’m not here to make a video about how we were unfairly robbed of first place by those Alchemy Club creeps who accidentally set fire to the stage.” She took a deep breath. “Carmilla, you were, surprisingly, there for me when I needed you, and I didn't do the same for you. And then I said some not so spectacular things. So, this one’s for you. I, uh, you know!" And so she played their song.

 

Five days.

Five days, and still not a peep from her roommate. Laura had tried her best to camp out in their room but Carmilla seemed to not have stepped foot in it all week. It had taken the reckless courage that comes with 3:00 a.m. sleep deprivation to send a Facebook message with the link to Carmilla, and seeing that **_Seen_** _3:40 AM_ timestamp hurt worse than her entire breakup.

Laura would get it if she hated her forever, but could she at least do it to her face?

 _Magic would be super useful right now,_ Laura mused as she laid on her bed, staring at the ceiling. _I could just wave my wand and go Accio-_

"Hey." Carmilla stood at the doorway.

"Hey." Laura stood up so fast she felt her vision blur, heart pounding in her chest.

Her feet moved of their own accord, and she found herself standing in front of Carmilla, who had stepped into the room.

"Are you okay? You look kinda tired. I’m sorry if you’re tired because you haven’t been sleeping because of me and I know you probably don't want to be roommates anymore and I-"

“You did a pretty good job, but it sounds better as a duet,” Carmilla said. She paused, frowning. “And not set to Wonderwall."

"Oh. Well, I still literally can’t play any other song besides that on the guitar. Believe me, I tried. I think the Alchemy Club might have cursed me..." She trailed off, because Carmilla had moved and now the distance between them was non-existent.

Carmilla closed the minuscule gap between them and kissed her hungrily.

Oh.

"So, you still want to be roommates?"

Carmilla’s laughter was swallowed by Laura's mouth, and she didn't need a broom to know what flying felt like.

 

“Ugh, I did not sign up to become a couple vlogger,” Carmilla said as Laura turned on the camera.

“We won’t! I just have to inform the Internet of our relationship update. I have a commitment to tell them the full truth about my life, after all. And Betty! Expect like, forty texts written purely in emoji from her. Besides, didn’t you want to rename my vlogs?”

“Carmilla has a nice ring to it.”

“Get over yourself. Laura and Carmilla’s Excellent Vlogventures? The Truthbusters!”

“Oh don’t go expecting investigative journalism crap from me, cupcake.”

“Well, according to the YouTube comments from the last couple months, our ship name is Hollstein.”

“No, nope, I am not one of your fictional characters, I refused to be shipped.”

“I don’t know, it’s a pretty good name. And the thought of us, being together, isn’t the worst thing in the world.”

“The idea definitely has its merits,” Carmilla murmured, her gaze drifting down to Laura’s lips.

“I totally ship it,” Laura whispered before the gap between them was completely closed.

“Moment ruined,” Carmilla announced as she pulled back, but when Laura pulled her in for a kiss, giggling, she smiled into it anyways.

 

 


End file.
